A Wii game system from Nintendo was one of our family's most popular Christmas gifts this year. Right after gifts had been opened Christmas morning my oldest son set out to create characters for the entire family. They are called "Mii"s (pronounced like "me"). Then he, his father and youngest brother played some of the sports games: tennis and bowling. When it was Samuel's turn he got a bit upset. This wasn't the Wii playing that he was used to. After a few minutes I figured it out; to Samuel "Wii" means "Wii Fit" because that is what he plays while he is at Occupational Therapy. We took out the Wii Sports disc and put in Wii Fit, he was fine after that.
I have been very surprised at Samuel's lack of balance and control while he does some of the exercises on Wii Fit. While exercising, a visual reference showing your center of balance appears on the screen. Samuel's moves all over the place! Players earn points for doing the exercises the correct way, and Samuel's scores are usually very low. Just last week I watched his occupational therapist guide him in these exercises and now Samuel's helpers and I will assist Samuel at home when we can. I think Wii will be a very helpful tool for improving Samuel's coordination and awareness.
As for the rest of the family, we are all enjoying it in different ways. My other two sons have an intense competition going for the top scores in the games and exercises. They really like the video games. My youngest son can beat everyone in the family in Wii bowling! He does this crazy twirling motion with his arm when he releases the ball! I don't ever recommend standing behind him in a real bowling alley if he tries that move there! My 3 year old daughter has fun on the balancing games in Wii Fit. Her 6 year old brother "helps" her, so she has some of the high scores on those games. I am the yoga champion for right now, but some of that is because I am the only one doing those exercises! I think I still hold the record score in the hula hoop games as well. The step aerobic exercises are the funniest to watch the kids do. All of them but Samuel will line up in the family room and follow along with whoever is actually using the Wii board at the time. The boys have the record scores in that.
We're all enjoying our new Wii game system very much!
5 comments:
Sounds like you guys are having fun!!! My nephew got the Wii and he loves it... I bought him the Wii version of "Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader" for Christmas.
That would be a great game for us to get. I wonder how well I'd do..
Wii are thinking about buying a Wii . . . Wii Fit and Wii Play are high on our list of packages. How does your autie do with Wii Sports?
Wii Sports was one of the games that frustrated Samuel a bit. I'm sure most of it was because his only interest the day he tried playing it (the first day we had it) was to play it the way he was familiar with from OT, playing Wii Fit. I'm sure with some coaxing he will eventually be interested in Wii Sports.
I've been pleasantly surprised with how useful Wii is for Samuel.. for him to work on his coordination and for us to have a visual way of seeing just how uncoordinated he currently is.
We decided on the xbox 360 this year for a varity of reasons. I kina wish I had one of those Wii's too. One at a time is enough.
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